Education is a continually developing endeavour, with many different priorities and techniques when it comes to training a workforce. Entering the Fourth Industrial Revolution means that society needs to evaluate the qualities that are necessary from emerging professionals in industries around the world.
Employers and employees alike need to accept that we are now in an age where a substantial and increasing number of tasks will be left almost exclusively to machinery and AI.
A report released in 2018 suggests that by 2022, no less than 54% of all employees will require significant re- and upskilling due to an increase in technological involvement in tasks that previously relied on human input. This is a significant paradigm shift that will affect the workforce significantly, with predictions that nearly 50% of companies will have some reduction of their workforce by this point.
This suggests that the priorities for workers will need to change; Alibaba founder Jack Ma spoke at Davos in 2018 and highlighted the importance of shifting the education process, to stop focusing on knowledge as the end result in a person’s development as machinery will be able to retain far more information than we can. Ma instead promoted the idea of teaching other skills. “Values, believing, independent thinking, teamwork, care for others – the soft skills – sports, music, painting, arts, to make sure humans are different from machines.”
This corresponds with the 2018 jobs report which suggests that skills will increasingly become the new way that we value our employees, with skills such as technological proficiency becoming much more sought after. Interestingly, more ‘human’ skills such as originality, initiative, critical thinking, complex problem-solving and attention to detail will continue to be or become even more relevant in the future workplaces around the globe.
With the rise of Digital Learning 2.0, designed to galvanise learners with new options for how they can develop the skills required for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the tools for education will need to change. Massive online open courses provided digital access to content for education nearly a decade ago. However, with smartphone technology becoming much more prominent and allowing new micro-education opportunities for users, we have a real opportunity to use technology to keep the workforce up to date and shift the focus to skill-sets that will ensure the longevity of human involvement in aspects of business and industry that machinery cannot be part of.
Education is a continually developing endeavour, with many different priorities and techniques when it comes to training a workforce. Entering the Fourth Industrial Revolution means that society needs to evaluate the qualities that are necessary from emerging professionals in industries around the world.
Employers and employees alike need to accept that we are now in an age where a substantial and increasing number of tasks will be left almost exclusively to machinery and AI.
A report released in 2018 suggests that by 2022, no less than 54% of all employees will require significant re- and upskilling due to an increase in technological involvement in tasks that previously relied on human input. This is a significant paradigm shift that will affect the workforce significantly, with predictions that nearly 50% of companies will have some reduction of their workforce by this point.
This suggests that the priorities for workers will need to change; Alibaba founder Jack Ma spoke at Davos in 2018 and highlighted the importance of shifting the education process, to stop focusing on knowledge as the end result in a person’s development as machinery will be able to retain far more information than we can. Ma instead promoted the idea of teaching other skills. “Values, believing, independent thinking, teamwork, care for others – the soft skills – sports, music, painting, arts, to make sure humans are different from machines.”
This corresponds with the 2018 jobs report which suggests that skills will increasingly become the new way that we value our employees, with skills such as technological proficiency becoming much more sought after. Interestingly, more ‘human’ skills such as originality, initiative, critical thinking, complex problem-solving and attention to detail will continue to be or become even more relevant in the future workplaces around the globe.
With the rise of Digital Learning 2.0, designed to galvanise learners with new options for how they can develop the skills required for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the tools for education will need to change. Massive online open courses provided digital access to content for education nearly a decade ago. However, with smartphone technology becoming much more prominent and allowing new micro-education opportunities for users, we have a real opportunity to use technology to keep the workforce up to date and shift the focus to skill-sets that will ensure the longevity of human involvement in aspects of business and industry that machinery cannot be part of.
